Fly, No.7, 2020: The Four Years of School (Ba Longfeng)

(This article was published in Tian Fei in July 2020)

Like all students in remote rural areas, I go to school on my back. That was my junior high school time in the 1980s, 12 to 16. Unlike most peasant children, my family lives deeper in the mountains, with worse conditions and greater suffering.

My hometown is in a small mountain village near Qiao Shan Mountain Range (commonly known as Ziwuling) in Longdong Plateau, on a small earth garden that runs through Ningwu section of Shaanxi-Gansu-Huangning Highway. The village that can be found on the navigation now is called Bajiayuan, but people call it Bajiayuan. It seems that God is deliberately testing the will of Ba Yuan people. The village is in the middle of nowhere, 32 miles from the old county township government in the east, 23 miles from the subway where Shigu township government is located in the west, 33 miles from Xiangle township government in the west, 37 miles from Miqiao township government in the south and 34 miles from Jincun township government in the north. Among them, the first two townships are in a garden, which is accessible by highway; To go to the last three towns, Beichuan and Nanchuan (Jiulongchuan Nature Reserve Nature Reserve) are separated by the way of going down the mountain, crossing the river and going to the tableland. During this period, I was thirsty, extremely tired and had pain in my calf, which was unforgettable. In short, Bayuan people have to go a long way to go to the market, go shopping, have meetings, pay public grain, go to school to join the army, and build official seals for relationships. They have no geographical advantage at all, and they are veritable "mountain people".

It turns out that Bayuan is Bayuan because of the universally accepted reason that "I opened this place and planted this tree"; We can study it in depth. The Ba surname is a branch of the Yellow Emperor. As one of the twenty-five sons of the Yellow Emperor, my ancestors lived in southern Gansu before the Zhou Dynasty and fought against the king of Wu in the 1 1 century BC. Because of defection to the enemy, he was named as a country in the Western Zhou Dynasty, with the white tiger as the totem. After that, he moved between Hanshui and Chongqing, built Chongqing as its capital for hundreds of years, and was destroyed by the long-term war with Chu, and was destroyed by Qin in Langzhong in 3 16 BC. Today's so-called Bayu, Bashu, Zhenba, Kangba and even Qinba Mountain, Daba Mountain, Langzhong Ancient City, Chongqing and so on. They are all witnesses of Pakistani civilization. Ba people are scattered in every corner of Kyushu. Today, there are Ba people in all provinces and regions of China, including Hongkong and Taiwan Province, and Tujia people are their descendants. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a Ba surname who went to Shaanxi from Shanxi Sophora japonica and settled in the palm-sized land of Zhongba Jiayuan. At first, there was no other surname in this treasure land. Until the "three-year hardship" period, the surplus fertile soil in the mountains became the life-saving capital of the hungry, and foreign talents restrained their ridicule of the Palestinian homeland and flocked to seek food.

Originally, our ancestors were brave, hardworking and virtuous, and almost all the bad karma of every Xinba people was doomed, so they naturally accepted it. But this kind of effort can only be true and out-and-out only through personal experience. I went to uncle Miqiaobaozi's house many times over the mountains, and returned to the Hunan concert where the commune was located at that time-the twenty-seventh episode of the twelfth lunar month and the fourteenth episode before the fifteenth day of the first month-the crowds surged and jostled, and the pond and the earth were almost a battle baptism like a "strong man's broken wrist"; After watching three or two unforgettable trips to visit my aunt and grandmother in Jincun, my father riding a bicycle to do business in the old county and township, and my cousin who teaches in the old county primary school, I inevitably met my fate-I have been waiting for my "glory" there: my school time.

When I was a child, I was a famous "strange commodity to live in" in Pakistan. I was extremely bold and agile, and I was instigated to do something that made people laugh. At that time, old people often said: this is strange, cowardly. Either go to jail or be an official in the future. Now I'm neither in jail nor an official. It is a shame to disappoint the old man!

After reading and being literate, when the father of a private teacher decided that I was the material for reading, he tried to cultivate me-from the "red kindergarten class" to the primary school graduation, when I was in the fifth grade, I took words and pictures with me. Needless to say, he was still the head teacher. In those years when I dropped out of school, I never got tired of studying, but in the year when the commune changed to the countryside, I finally got into junior high school without any suspense. In the past, the farthest place I reached was a rotten mottled commune gate with red letters and white background. At first glance, the street where the commune was located smelled of coal smoke, and there was a hall with white walls and blackboard newspapers-the highest institution of learning in the whole commune-middle school. Now, I have come to my hometown-Tiewang Street, and I want to settle down and study! The nearest junior high school in Wang Tie was told that it was 30 miles away from home (my four-wheel drive has been measured repeatedly for several years since my father died, but it is actually 23 miles). And I, a boy of 12 years old, carry walking to school with a pot helmet every Sunday after lunch, and then walk home hungry after school at noon on Saturday.

Needless to say, it's hard to carry a steamed stuffed bun to school.

At the beginning of the autumn semester, the joy of being a middle school student has not passed, and the unbearable pain of leaving home and homesickness suddenly strikes. At the urging of my brothers in the same village, I left home with tears in my eyes and a pot helmet branded by my mother. Yiyi said goodbye to the maple tree at the door, passed through the southern end of the village full of trees, and handed it over to Xianning Highway in Tai O, so I forgot the "girl country" just now; Because those who used to be as arrogant as me can't catch up with the "army" no matter how they walk, they can only trot all the way. In this regard, I would also like to ask Brother Xinning, Brother Hui Liang and Tian Liang to help me recite "East and West" by heart. It is said to be a highway. In fact, the whole journey is a winding and rugged dirt road. Usually the pond is full of soil, and when it rains, it becomes a mud pond. And the circuit may be broken at any time-the big and deep slope is steep, and the deep ditch at the bottom is extremely dangerous and often collapses. We once saw Wang Feng's father driving a newly bought walking tractor in the village, bleeding profusely and almost dying. After the big cave, we joined the classmates who came up together, and the team gradually grew. The autumn wind kept covering the sky, and the population dared not open their eyes and look at their noses, so they had to turn around against the wind. Even if there is no wind, the occasional miles of dust from the car are "enough for people to eat a pot."

I remember that there was little rest in the team because I had to catch up with the evening self-study at 6 pm. Facing the cool sun or rain and snow, we walked east and west along the route of Bayuan-Blackpool-Wanyuan-Wazi-Shigu-Buddhist Temple, and the team was more powerful and disciplined-everyone was silent, everyone was firm, and everyone was walking faster and faster, as if going to a life-and-death battle. After six consecutive "battles", I finally reached Wang Tie Street, but unfortunately the school is still at the west end of this street. Looking at the school and sighing, it is difficult for me to get rid of the fatigue of filling my legs with lead. Away from the village, away from my parents, away from my playmates, like a dead leaf, a piece of paper or a snowflake as big as a seat on a street corner, I came to the tall iron gate at a loss and started a week of junior high school life with dry steamed buns, sleeping in a cold bed, learning English, homesickness and tears.

At that time, we didn't have enough buns to eat, or some poor people, like me, could only eat half full forever. At the beginning of the rural contract responsibility system, some families initially solved the problem of eating. They wore yellow-brown jackets wrapped in white pulp. Just that kind of long fragrance is enough to make me cry in humiliation. I wish I could not drill a mouse hole. Because the family has been distributing thin land, most of my father's energy is at school. Even if my brother dropped out of school in the fourth grade, the labor force at home is still thin and can't eat enough. I'm going to mix corn flour into my pot helmet and bring a "corn flour copper hammer". I'm starving. I remember a deep time, in the spring of the second semester of grade one, my father took me to the Buddhist temple grain depot to get back the grain I sold. Looking for distant relatives, my father tried his best to please him, but the man looked disdainful about these two things. At that moment, my self-esteem was greatly hurt. With tears in my eyes, I made up my mind that I must study hard, go to school and eat state food. Want to eat spicy food, in the current buzzwords, that's really too much. You can't even eat a few cold dishes with canned food. Most people can only eat onions and green peppers dipped in salt. At first, the school stove only provided a pot of messy boiling water twice a day. Boiling water is a master in his fifties, with a latosolic red face and an eagle-like nose towering into the sky. A large mole was piled up in the depression on the right side of his nose, and a lock of hair stuck proudly on it. It is said to be an old revolution, but it is as fierce, arrogant and daunting as American soldiers; We all call him "Master Gual". In winter, the pot helmet is as cold as a steel plate, and "Gualeishi" takes off the steamed bread for us with a giant steamer. In the second half of the hot day, the pot helmet gave birth to emerald-like mildew spots, and the steamed bread was difficult to swallow. You have to deduct mildew spots to barely satisfy your hunger. The desks and chairs in the class are getting more and more comfortable because someone dropped out of school.

Accommodation is even more tense. My dormitory in Grade One is a shabby cave under the school classroom. In every dangerous cave with a small hole, there are more than 40 boys or girls in two classes of the same grade-we are "squeezed" into sardines without warning and without hesitation. Every night, we lie on our side like cows, panting. Every time we turn around, we need a lot of strength, and we need the participation and "collective cooperation" of everyone in the dormitory to complete it. Late at night, bad breath, smelly (sweaty) feet, farting, grinding teeth, and talking, the cave is full of life and fragrance. It's hard to think about the whole details now, except that we have created a miracle of human sleep, enough to apply for the Guinness Book of Records. /kloc-just after 0/0, the congestion situation has improved, because more and more people are deserting, and more because the winter of MINUS ten degrees in Longdong Plateau is coming; We must find our own home and move to a hot kang. But there must be relatives or acquaintances and more firewood for residents to use. I only lived in the cave dormitory for less than a year; In winter, I moved to my grandfather's house in Xinning, near Xigou, my school. I still remember smoking and burning heatable adobe sleeping platform. My cousin Xinning, who was in the third grade, was called home by my uncle that winter and forced to get married. Last August, when I was in the second grade, the school moved to the new campus diagonally opposite Dongjie Substation. After work, I came back here to teach Chinese for nearly ten years, and I was admitted to Lanzhou University as a graduate student. I remember there was a lecture on "preventing snake bites" in the new playground. The host let the snake bite his tongue and cleaned up the venom on the spot ... The conditions in the new campus have improved, but the winter in the new dormitory is colder. That winter, I lived at my classmate Su Shuping's house. After self-study in the evening, we went to see the open-air movie The Painted Skin. When we came back, I couldn't stop playing back the "painted skin" in the movie. I was terrified and out of my wits.

Studying alone and hard accommodation all make homesickness so interesting. I miss my parents involuntarily, and I miss my family all the time. I miss the hot rice and kang at home all the time, our cows, donkeys, sheep, chickens and rabbits, Toona sinensis, peony flowers and earth hives at the gate of the courtyard, and my bees. They linger in the courtyard and keep flying like a line ... Stealing tears in crowded caves, I can't help crying when others eat white bread, in front of classmates' arrogance. I want to be "short of breath" at home, I envy others as day students, and I feel inferior to the children of other cadres; My father's protection is no longer, which makes me depressed ... my hands are frozen like carrots in winter, my ears are frozen early, and my frostbitten feet have pimples, which makes me a kidnapper. The golden nest and the silver nest are not as good as the earth nest at home. Think that home is the best place to go in slack winter, and some students become deserters. Ignorant, I gradually adapted to the hard life of study, and the first exam was the fifth in my class.

Undoubtedly, the study in junior high school has also opened my eyes.

There are many teachers, men, women and children, many of whom have anecdotes and scandals. There are many classmates in each village and other places, and most of them don't know each other, but after a few words, they find that they are relatives not far away. Gao Yongning behind my desk is my cousin Gao Pengning. He is a day student. He goes home by bike. He often brings me apples and gives me a ride on Saturday. On a snowy day in Grade Two, he broke his leg while riding a bike. Fortunately, it's nothing serious, otherwise he may not be my uncle in ten years. Classes are also interesting. There is a strange writing in Chinese called classical Chinese, which is difficult to understand; Teacher Zhang Xiangrong, who speaks very fast and is short (he became my colleague after work, and both of them are in the Chinese teaching and research group), did not teach in order at the beginning. The first class seems to be teaching Liu Yazi's "The Voice of Revolution Across the Picture", and then he learned Lu's "Laoshan Street". Mathematics is not called mathematics directly, but algebra. It was taught by our head teacher, a tall teacher who is about to retire, Yao (my uncle's brother). The first thing I learned seems to be "replacing numbers with letters". This letter is not "a, o, e" in primary school, but changed to ABC. English has been learning these ABC from the beginning. Before, the pronunciation was very different. Q (paint) should read "gram oil" and W (Ukrainian) should read "stretch without slipping"; Guo Zhenya, a young teacher with curly hair who practices boxing, is also teaching us words like yes, no, pen and bee that we can't remember. English is difficult, partly because we are stubborn and absent-minded, and partly because those English teachers don't understand this kind of thing, how can they "confuse others with it"! Geography is taught by Bai Yang, the director of education. It is very strict and clear. The plant teacher is the vice principal, and the lecture voice is deep and serious, which makes people breathless; It is said that he plays basketball well and hurt his ribs during the game, so he dare not speak loudly. The history teacher is my deskmate's father, and my fourth uncle is tall. He is as tall as the Chinese teacher and one and a half heads lower than my country beauty. But he is the son of the old revolution, so he became my son-in-law. It is recognized by his classmates that he speaks well in class, but Liang's "ah" is far more than necessary; He took us to geometry in the second grade, which was very popular. Teacher Zhao, who teaches physics in the third grade, caused a sensation with his music. I can also sing the Hometown of the Moon and I Have a Dream that he taught me. His demeanor is "very graceful", with white hair and black body, and he is tall. He wears a scarf in winter, much like Xu Zhimo. Ah, we are surprised that such figures can be produced in the countryside! There is also a course called "A Brief History of Social Development", which is opened by the head teacher. From this, we know that people are changed from monkeys, and the working people they belong to are the creators of history ... Unfortunately, in the last class in the morning and noon, our hearts have already flown to the steamer and covered it with the net bag on the helmet that is being taken off. As soon as the bell rang, the students rushed to the yard under the slope with chopsticks in their hands at a speed of 100 meters, and lined up at the kitchen door to get their own steamed buns and boiled water. This situation has become a topic that students often feel and permanently mention when they get together in the future.

As mentioned above, in those years of school, I also had an unusually nostalgic past.

Riding his "black fire stick" and often taking me or my luggage to and from school, it was Uncle Tian Liang who was in the second grade at that time. But his car is so bad that he can't walk smoothly with the air pipe. In addition, his car doesn't have brakes, so it's dangerous to put a sports car under the mountain, and he dare not sit more. But I always remember his benefits. Later, he joined the army and now works in Qingyang Animal Husbandry Bureau. A wife is like jade, and a daughter is like a flower.

There is another thing that always reminds me. At noon on a Saturday in the winter of junior high school, as usual, we rushed home from school hungry and cold, and arrived at Songjiamaozi, which was more than a mile away from home. Suddenly, everyone ran to the side of the road to hide. Knowing that another car passed by, I ran to the side of the road and thought, it won't be my uncle's house. At this moment, the green jeep police car passed by us and suddenly stopped. Miraculously, Bo Er got off the bus. He didn't seem to remember my name, waved and shouted, "That new dragon, come, I'll take you back!" " "I'm so excited, I don't know how I got on the bus, but I clearly remember that when I got home, I was dizzy and lying unconscious under the pile of millet on my farm ... Bo Er's name is Ba Yongkuan, who is the only person in our parents' generation who is doing business outside, and is the director of Ningxian Detention Center. He also gave me a lot of help after I worked. Unfortunately, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage shortly after his retirement. His eldest son, En Fengge, is the only person in our village who works at the county level.

When our large troops filed out of the village, the old people would say leisurely: a thousand families study, and one and a half become talents. Yes, studying in the countryside is like planting crops around you, you can't expect anything; But we all understand our parents' thoughts and feel a great responsibility.

It's really hard to carry a bun to school, but only its hard work can temper our will and let us be tempered in adversity and grow into talents. I have been an iron king for two years and rarely fall out of the top ten. Before me, Brother Enfeng and Uncle Yongning were my father's students and my role models. I went to the county seat to attend a normal school. My uncle Yongning, who has been working in the county government, waited for me at the station, personally sent me to the normal school, and asked several teachers to take care of me. I was deeply impressed by his concern for the younger generation. Born in sorrow and died in happiness, carrying a bun to school is the basic pass for jumping out of the farm. Interestingly, individual people with good conditions don't get so good grades, and they have to go through the hurdle of carrying buns from extravagance to thrift before they can achieve positive results. My cousin Wang Feng, who started junior high school at the county uncle's office, saw little hope, so he quickly turned back to his hometown to repeat his studies before he was admitted to normal school after me. He is now the chairman of the county Federation of Industry and Commerce. Others joined the army and jumped out of the farm gate, such as Uncle Tian Liang and Brother Hui Liang. The latter worked as a missile force and is now an executive of a state-owned enterprise in Shenzhen. He is also the one who changed the course of my life.

At the end of the second grade, when I was going to the third grade, he went to Miqiao to repeat the third grade, and I suddenly had the idea of going there to repeat the second grade. So, my study and life in Miqiao junior high school for two years began.

I became a day student at Miqiao. I ate and lived in my grandmother's house, but I lived in my second aunt's house for two winters. The linear distance from her yard to the middle school is only 100 meters. My second aunt is now seventy-four, taking care of the elderly at my cousin's house in Lanzhou. Last April, I went to the radio and television community to visit her. She was too excited to speak and insisted that I stay for dinner. Later, I called my mother and said "I have a conscience" ... which made me feel guilty. I want to say, second aunt, compared with your care in those days, I did it too "heartlessly"!

At that time, I was not a day student in the pure sense, because I had to transfer food to my grandmother and my second aunt once or twice a year. Moreover, every time you turn to grain, you have to cross the river for a long journey, and it is tantamount to a well-organized expedition. Generally, when transporting grain in winter, it is necessary to survey the route several days in advance, and pay special attention to how the ice valve disappears on the shady slope, especially to choose the ferry crossing the Jiulong River. You have to listen to the weather forecast in northern Shaanxi two days in advance and observe the weather changes. You must feed the animals one day in advance. Moreover, I had to get up early when it was dark, and watered the donkey, an animal determined to go out. My mother cooked, and my father and I loaded several snakeskin bags of wheat, some miscellaneous grains and vegetables, and a few pots of coriander oil on the shelf car, and brought a few pages of boards or roots. Tie a shovel or a bundle of cage bars, and then tie these things with a long rope. Please come early, make an appointment with your uncle in advance, have a good meal and smoke. Eat and drink donkeys. Carefully put a cover on the donkey, tie the donkey's neck and put a splint on it. The two sides of the splint are fixed with ropes and closed around the donkey. Behind it, an iron hook is tied, which hooks the rope on the axle of the rack car ... When the donkey walks hard, it will take it with it. With the sound of "holding the ball", I hold the donkey's reins, my father or uncle is driving the shaft, and another person is watching or pulling or pushing behind. A group of people set out on the road with their mother's uneasy eyes and walked carefully along the official road to Miqiao. Downhill. Go to Kawado. Looking for the ferry crossing the river. Climbing a mountain in danger with sweat. Go to Yuanshang and continue walking for more than ten miles. After about five hours, I arrived at my grandma's house or my second aunt's house. You have to go through a steep and thin spool to get into the second aunt's house. You have to walk two miles to grandma's house. You have to cross a big ditch before you can get to the scene, unload the donkey, and with the help of grandpa and uncle, go down the steep slope to the door. Finally, through a short and flat spool, we arrived at the spacious yard. Grandma, who is thin and lonely, has already prepared lunch for us, enthusiastically took out a broom and let us sweep the soil, served tea on the kang, sighed, and delicious food followed. Everyone greeted each other while eating and talked about the journey. They will inevitably have some emotions again. Finally, they will say, "Longfeng, look at your parents' anxiety." If you fail the exam ... "

I am ashamed and too nervous to eat, even though everyone knows that I am the hope of the school.

Since Miqiao junior high school, I only got the second place in the first exam, and I have been holding the first place since then, far ahead. Math and composition competitions also won the championship. In the first semester of Grade Three, Liu Zhongxue, a math teacher and head teacher, took the three of us to the county seat to participate in the math competition. Miss Liu is a very lively person. Now she is retired and lives in Xi 'an. He will play the erhu and teach us music in the second day of junior high school. He has taught Walking on a Country Road and Aobaohui. The latter's lyrics "I am waiting for my beloved girl", "girl" was changed to "partner" by him, and it took us several years to discover the secret. It was also my first time in the county, and I couldn't tell the difference between the southeast and the northwest, but I clearly remember that a bowl of fried noodles downstairs at the corner of Ningxian County was 90 cents. The last three people ranked in the top ten, and the Education Bureau specially awarded prizes to the school. At that time, I went home very few times and was very focused. Every time I go home, I am planning my future or a difficult problem. On the night of the third winter vacation, I sat on the hot kang of our newly-built pit yard on the east bank of the Eighth Hospital to review, with hot ass and cold body. My parents urged me to go to bed several times. Graduation, middle school pre-selection in the early first middle school, English is difficult. It coincides with the international award-winning release of Red Sorghum, and this subtitle is on the political test paper; I can't understand this movie. When the results came out, I got 504 points, ranking fourth in the county.

The technical secondary school examination was conducted in Chengguan Primary School in the county. Early in the morning, my father took me from Miqiao to Ping Zi by bike, and then to Liangping. After staying in Liangping Health Center where Zhang Zi worked, he won early and finally went down to the county seat. The weather was fine, and he told me the answering skills all the way. He should check carefully, grasp the time and pay attention to the paper. I want to write a good composition, be creative, and dare not take risks ... Now that I think about it, my father was full of joy of harvest, because his second son, who can learn, never rested later than nine o'clock, so he did not have neurasthenia, but became more and more brave and in good condition. When I got home after the exam, I picked up my sickle and joined the wheat harvest team. My neighbor who was cutting wheat on the shore asked me how I did in the exam, and I said I passed it directly. Finally, I was admitted to Ningxian Normal University in advance with a score of 4,965,438+0.5, and became the first normal student in the village. The days of going to school in this life are over.

Ah, the years when I went to school with a bun on my back were the years when I immediately made a positive result. My parents are my commissary officers, and my dedication, determination, kindness and never giving up are my indomitable soldiers. After graduating from normal school, I worked as a primary and secondary school teacher for more than ten years, finished my first novel, and then I was admitted to Lanzhou University for a master's degree in literature at public expense. After my master's degree, I came to Xi 'an to work hard and become a writer. My parents came to the ancient city with me, and my life was hard and full; My son's key middle school, the university on the first floor of the northwest, and Xingqing Palace, the largest park in Xi 'an, are all "never tired of looking at my balcony". This is the reward of my hard work at school!

Oh, I'm back at school! I will miss my youth forever and will miss it more and more!

20201Monday, October 27th, 65438, Xi 'an Ivy Garden.

Modified in Xi on Thursday, April 6, 2020/kloc-0.

Tuesday, May 2020 1 9 was changed to Xi 'an.

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